To ask if anyone has ever gotten over fear of flying

[picklejimmy]

I have an absolute crippling fear of flying. I am due to fly march next year and I am already having sleepiness nights because of it. I can't get over the thought of it crashing. The logical part of me knows the odd are tiny but I spent all of last night picturing the most awful outcomes, it panicked me so much I cried (Im aware I am coming across as ridiculous but just trying to be honest).
It's 4 months away but I don't want to spend all that time worrying.
How can I get over this fear? Has anyone on here successfuly done it?

Before I had children I flew and worked around the world. Then I had a couple of really bad, eventful flights. I became scared of flying. We flew a few times with the children, but I became more anxious as I felt like I couldn’t trust my ex h in an emergency to save one of the children!
I’m not even sure if I’m scared of flying or the people I’m flying with that I don’t trust.
But I haven’t flown in ten years and the thought of it makes me terrified, so I am reading your suggestions.
I tried hypnotherapy , but it didn’t work for me.

I've just caught up on this thread and honestly it makes me so sad reading about how a fear of flying is affecting so many people so badly.
I've replied to loads of AIBUs over the years regarding fear of flying. Maybe we need a separate section addressing this.
I know for a fact that loads of crew reply over and over again giving advice and reassurance.
The other thing I find with people who have a crippling fear is that generally they have a very vivid imagination. They can envisage horrendous scenarios.
I have family members that watch aircraft investigation religiously and terrify them selves.
One last thing .....Europe will not allow certain airlines to even fly over their countries because they are not deemed safe enough. British airlines are the safest in the world. Maintained to the highest standards and have highly trained crew - you would faint if you saw the aircraft that fly out of some countries ......but they are still carrying passengers. Still flying safely and I've got to be honest I wouldn't set foot on one. British airlines are a different kettle of fish.

EMDR that’s what you need

It 100% is the fear of dying. I'm not a fan of heights but can deal with that. Not claustrophobic in any way. I need to address that fear I think.
I get a bit edgy when I'm being driven on a motorway too but nothing like this pure feeling of panic and dread when I fly. I'm definitely going to try the hypnotherapy.

Yep I'm with you - hate HATE flying. I can just about get on a plane now but then spend the duration in a state of panic (just about contained). I can at least now get on a short haul flight whereas there was a long period of time that I couldn't. I did have 1 hypnotherapy session which helped temporarily, and since then I used the Paul McKenna fear of flying audio which did seem to help (at least to get me to this stage), but I'd love to do one of the courses.

it's the fear of dying for me - that's why planning in detail what would happen in that situation reassured me. I don't like flying with my whole family @lexiepuppy because I find it reassuring that if anything happened to me at least some of my family would remain!

my OH feels safer on British airways than any other airline - he'll go out of his way including taking extra flights to stick with them.

Erm ... I nearly crashed yesterday.

I was sitting at the window and was thinking 'we are coming in a bit slowly'. I know the landing path quite well, and we were at that sort of 'floating speed' that happens just before touch down and we were nowhere near the runway (aka a stall).

The pilot slammed on the engines to get speed up then aborted the landing and started climbing on full throttle. Only then the other passengers realised something unusual was happening.

My knees were knocking. Literally, knocking! We came around and this time he flew in pretty briskly.

He told us we had encountered some wind shear so he needed to go round again. I thought hmmm, it all looked pretty slow from way out.

Paradoxically, I posted as a reassurance that things have to go BADLY wrong and even when they are going wrong 100 feet from the ground, the pilot intervenes and flies you out of trouble.

I genuinely believe that British Airways pilots are special. There was very nearly a crash in Johannesburg South Africa when one of the engines went into reverse or something.

The co-pilot did aerobatics in his spare time. He pointed this 747 at the ground, dove the plane out of its stall and saved something like 300 lives. Absolutely true story. They were lucky they were on a BA plane.

www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/ba-747-crew-commended-for-escaping-near-stall-on-tak-343738/

I only know about it because a man I met at a cricket match abruptly mentioned he had been on a flight 'which was hairy'. That was the face of a frightened man.

So being nosy I found out about it. I asked a pilot in a lift at Heathrow. He replied 'they are absolute heroes'

ha, I shall have new respect for my OH's love of all things BA - perhaps he's seen this!

EMDR - it's a trauma technique but is useful for things like this. With the therapist you think about the scary stuff whilst they do the 'tapping' which helps process the memories/thoughts. If you're anything like me, whilst in that sort of semi-trance state a few memories came up which seemed ridiculous, but actually had led to me being afraid. I am much much better flying now.

Sounds a crazy treatment but is effective, recommended by NICE and used on traumatised veterans. Would probably only take a few sessions.

I hate flying too but unfortunately love travelling so I've had to do my best to get over it. Here are some things that help me:

• Every time you have a scary thought hit back at it with logic. Think of all the people that were at the airport to catch flights, nothing bad is going to happen on their flights and nothing bad will happen at yours. Think of all the planes in the air this very second - nothing bad is happening to them. Issues with planes are so rare that whenever something happens they're deemed newsworthy - they don't report on every car crash 'cos they happen far more frequently.

• I once watched a YouTube video where the pilot said 'separate fear from danger' - every time I get nervous I repeat that phrase in my head. You may be scared but you're NOT in danger.

• Think of all the people you know that have flown in their lives. Has anything bad happened to them? Do you get nervous for them when they announce they're flying somewhere?

• General advice I've received is to try and be one of the last people on the plane but this doesn't really work for me as I'm equally terrified I'll miss the bloody thing.

• Take as much as possible to distract yourself, I like listening to music but this leaves a bit too much for my mind to wander so watching a film or reading a book is generally more helpful. Sometimes I read back through messages I've sent my family/friends.

• If you're going to fly regularly get into a routine. I eat at the same place before catching my flight, listen to music during takeoff (This will sound a bit mad but I always listen to 'Don't Stop Movin'' by S Club 7 simply because it came on shuffle once during takeoff and at my peak of fear they sang 'forget about your fears tonight, listen to your heart, let's just touch the sky' and I took it as a SIGN). I try to make sure I have an aisle seat and usually sit somewhere where I can see the cabin crew during takeoff - if they're not freaking out I have no reason to.

Wishing you luck for your flight, try to put it to the back of your mind for now as worrying about it won't help (easier said than done, I know!).